Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Michael Johnston: NZ Initiative Researcher on the Government's action regarding low intermediate maths results

Transcript

Michael Johnston: NZ Initiative Researcher on the Government's action regarding low intermediate maths results · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Track cycling Gold Medal race coming your way very shortly.
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Right now, Let's call it what it is. It's an
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: education crisis. Just twenty two percent of year eight students
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: are at the expected standard for mass. That means roughly
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: eighty percent are not, and the government wants to flip
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: that eighty twenty so that eighty percent they are actually achieving.
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: They've got new workbooks coming next year, they've got teacher upskilling.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: The ero is being overhauled to focus on outcomes and achievement.
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: The Ministry of Education will intervene earlier and more often.
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  Speaker 1: Is it get to work? Doctor Michael Johnston is with
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  Speaker 1: the New Zealand Initiative. He's a senior fellow there and
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  Speaker 1: has worked in education most of his life. Michael, good morning,
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  Speaker 1: Good morning.
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  Speaker 2: How are you doing very well?
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  Speaker 1: Thank you? Are they on the right track with what
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  Speaker 1: they're doing.
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  Speaker 2: Well? They definitely need to do something like this, as
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  Speaker 2: you said, or you could describe it as a crisis,
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  Speaker 2: but actually there's no indication from these data that things
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: have got worse. It's probably just revealed what's been there
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: for quite some time. The way in which they've tested
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  Speaker 2: maths and other curriculum areas has changed, and what we're
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  Speaker 2: catching now kids who are behind the year level that
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  Speaker 2: they're at, Whereas in the past we measured how far
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  Speaker 2: whether they were at the right phase, which bands of years.
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  Speaker 2: So we've got finer grained data here, and so it's
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  Speaker 2: likely that things haven't actually got worse, that they've been
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  Speaker 2: mis bad for a while.
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  Speaker 1: How long are we talking decades?
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  Speaker 2: We don't know exactly, Quite likely a decade or more.
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  Speaker 1: So if that's the case, should we should be that worried?
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  Speaker 2: Oh? I think we should be worried when only just
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  Speaker 2: a bit more than a fifth of year eight students
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  Speaker 2: are meeting the standard according to the curriculum. So yeah,
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  Speaker 2: I think the action that the Minister for Education and
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  Speaker 2: the Minister I've announced is absolutely necessary. Will it be enough, well,
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: time will tell, But I think that it's encouraging that
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  Speaker 2: they're introducing these workbooks and teacher guides. Just to be clear,
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  Speaker 2: my understanding is that those books will be aligned with
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  Speaker 2: the new curriculum that's coming next year, so the publishing
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: companies will do some work on them to reconfigure them
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  Speaker 2: to match the curriculum.
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  Speaker 1: I spoke to a principle yesterday and he didn't have
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  Speaker 1: high hopes for this, first of all, that they would
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  Speaker 1: even get the booklets. But second of all, he said,
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  Speaker 1: will they cater to my ever increasingly diverse range of students,
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  Speaker 1: including neuro diverse students in different English second language all
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  Speaker 1: these other things? Is will they do that? And is
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  Speaker 1: that a big problem for the education system?
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  Speaker 2: Well, first of all, let me say that I think
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  Speaker 2: it is a big problem for the education system, and
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  Speaker 2: I would acknowledge the huge challenges that teachers are facing
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  Speaker 2: at the moment with behavior in our classrooms. There was
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  Speaker 2: a report, I think it was from the OECD that
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  Speaker 2: said that the disorder in our classrooms is amongst the
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: worst and the worst in the world. Neurodiversity seems to
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  Speaker 2: be on the increase for reasons that are not fully understood.
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  Speaker 2: I certainly acknowledge the challenges that teachers face, and I
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  Speaker 2: think more will be required to meet that target of
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  Speaker 2: eighty percent at curriculum by the end of year eight
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  Speaker 2: in twenty thirty.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, we've still got a long way to go. Doctor
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  Speaker 1: Michael Johnson, thank you very much for your time. He's
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: a senior fellow at the New Zealand Initiative. Talking about
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: the government's crackdown on education seven.
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• 3:51
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• 3:52
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• 3:54
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